While many adults have grown tired of the political advertising and campaign news in general, the concept of a presidential election is a new happening for many elementary children. Scholastic, a widely-respected provider of online educational resources, has developed a web site that teaches elementary children basic principles of a presidential election. On its Election 2008 site, Scholastic provides opportunities for students to vote for a candidate, meet the candidates, and hear the latest campaign news. Six large buttons on the main page invite students to learn about the electoral college, the process of campaigning, the candidates and their views on issues, the political parties (including third parties), tips from the pros, and the government works. Finally, there are numerous games and quizzes for the adventurous.

At the DEN Institute we had a friendly competition one night called the “DENliest Catch” named after the Discovery show “The Deadliest Catch.” Ten of us signed up to share our favorite Web 2.0 resource in 5 minutes or less. The challenge for me was the 5 minutes or less part – I could have taken an hour.

Two of my colleagues shared resources for books online. Check them out!
The first site, Lookybook, has over 300 picture books currently with the collection growing rapidly. The site allows you to look at picture books in their entirety—from cover to cover. Classroom teachers with an internet connection and a projector in their classroom could use this site to have the students follow along as they read the book aloud. Actually there are many ways teachers with a projector and internet connection could use this site.

Visitors have the ability to search for books by author, illustrator, subject, or genre. It’s definitely worth “a look.”

The other site, Storyline Online, is an online streaming video site (translation – high speed internet connection required) that features members of the Screen Actors Guild reading popular children’s books aloud. Every book has accompanying activities and lesson plans. This site doesn’t have a large collection but it does include some of my favorite books read by some of my favorite actors.